Rainbow of dahlias and mangaves wow at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
My Northeast road trip in early October wasn’t only about seeing fall foliage. Naturally it included lots of garden visits too, starting with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. Only 17 days remained until the garden closed for the season (what a strange concept for this Southerner), but you wouldn’t have known it from the gardens, so colorful and full on October 1st.
We’d hardly entered when a mass of sunset-hued dahlias hijacked my attention. And then I spotted a collection of starfish-armed mangaves afloat on a wine-red sea. What magnificent madness!
Mangave madness
Look at these beauties! I know I’d be a mangave collector hoarder if only I had a greenhouse for winter protection.
Each one has room to shine on this unique mangave island.
Dazzling dahlias
The dahlias beckoned too, in all their colorful, frilly glory.
I fell into a stupor of dahlia bliss, taking close-ups of each dewy flower.
Let them wash over you, as I did.
The bees were in love too.
This one reminds me of peppermint bark.
And this one resembles a juju hat.
Red dahlias and love-lies-bleeding amaranthus make a fun pairing.
Lemon yellow goodness
Purplish pink
Even hot-pink, white, and yellow
How could you ever choose a favorite?
The yellow, orange, and burgundy flowers harmonized with surrounding trees beginning to turn.
More amaranthus with pink dahlias
And more
And more!
Really, I couldn’t get enough of these beautiful flowers.
Pumpkin patch
Nearby I spotted a small pumpkin patch and entertained a Linus-style analysis of its sincerity. It seemed pretty sincere to me. I hope the Great Pumpkin visited.
Troll sighting!
Recalling that we’d only just entered the garden and its 300 acres still beckoned, we followed the main path toward a pond and bridge overlooking…a giant troll!
Danish artist Thomas Dambo’s recycled-wood trolls are lurking in “hidden” locations throughout the woodlands of CMBG (OK, they’re marked on a map), part of the exhibit Guardians of the Seeds. Hunting for all five trolls, and discovering through clues where the trolls’ tree seeds are being guarded, makes for treasure-hunt fun for kids or completionists like us. I’ll show more of the trolls in my next post.
Sensory garden
Much of CMBG’s 300 acres is given over to woodlands and riverfront with extensive trails. The main gardens, bookended on each side by woodland, include a sensory garden, butterfly house and garden, the dahlia garden, a wetland, a woodland garden, pond garden, event lawn, hillside garden, and meditation garden. Oh, and a fantastic children’s garden, which I’ll share in my next post. Let’s wander!
OK, I didn’t get very far. This matrix planting of low peach flowers mingling with ground-hugging purple and silver plants, backed by tall coral-pink cannas, stopped me in my tracks.
How gorgeous is this? I don’t know any of the plants, so if you do, please share. Update: The silver is ‘Angel Wings’ senecio. The peach flowers are probably Alstroemeria. And the purple is likely Alternanthera, perhaps ‘Purple Prince’. Thank you to Elaine, Kris, and KS for their helpful IDs!
Pond and woodland gardens
Those cannas were looking so pretty, you’d never know the garden was set to close for the season in 17 days, right? Here they jostle with white cleome.
On the other side of the pond, bronze-leaved orange canna echoes the toasty color of late-season ferns, with an orange maple in the background adding its own color echo.
I love this kinetic sculpture, Flock of Birds by George Sherwood, which spun and glittered near pointillist birches (or aspens?).
A stylized murmuration
Mosaic pebble patio
Tiger eye sumacs showed off burnt-orange fall color in this inviting, walled patio garden. A reflexology maze invites you to take off your shoes and feel the pebble pattern with your feet.
In the center, a stone block holds a pretty dish planter. The other stone block by the bench…
…has a carved maze pattern on top that channels rainwater over the edge.
Rabbit, a stone sculpture by Lisa Becu, overlooks the scene from atop a low wall.
What an appealing space.
Black millet catching the sunlight
Kousa dogwood is unfamiliar to me, but how pretty it is in fruit.
Actually the fruit kind of resembles magnified coronavirus, now that I think about it — ha!
Beautiful rosy color
Hydrangeas were looking lovely too.
And late-season flowering perennials of all kinds
This flower appealed both to bees…
…and to squirrels. We spotted this little guy noshing on a flower bud.
Toad lily
And a closeup view
Arbor garden
A grand arbor smothered in grapevines and clematis (gone to seed) made a cool shady spot to sit and enjoy the views.
Around this time we felt hunger pangs and visited the garden’s market for to-go sandwiches, which we enjoyed outdoors. Stay tuned for much more from Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, including giant trolls, in my next post!
Up next: Autumn grasses, a storybook children’s garden, and a troll hunt at CMBG. For a look back at fall color in Damariscotta, Maine, click here.
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Digging Deeper
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Maine seems like another world for sure with so many lovely unfamiliar plants.
I’m always pleased to know the name of anything from a vastly different gardening region. But it’s so fun to see what grows in other places.
Wow, this is not what I envision when I think of Maine. Thanks for sharing.
Those dahlias and mangaves are pretty exotic, even as far south as Texas. It was fun to see the ka-pow of them right as we walked in. My next post will have more typical Maine garden scenery, I expect, with billowy perennial beds, autumnal grasses, and piney forests.
Gorgeous. What a fantastic display of dahlias and that’s the nicest use of mangaves I have seen. The plants you are looking to have id’d: I think the pink/apricot ones are alstomeria, the large silver leaf is Senecia ‘Angel Wings’ and the purple could be Iresine, a dark leaved pepper or basil. Best guesses. Could be totally wrong. Looking forward to the next post.
Thanks for taking a stab at the IDs, Elaine. I’m in love with the ‘Angel Wings’ senecio!
CMBG is at the top of my botanic gardens bucket list. I love the dahlias, the troll, and the maze carved into stone. I generally agree with Elaine on the plant IDs in the Sensory Garden. The silver plants are definitely Senecio ‘Angel Wings’. I guessed the purple plants were either basil or possibly Alternanthera ‘Purple Knight’. My first guess was that the pink flowers were Alstroemeria; however, if that narrow grass-like foliage belonged to the flowers then I’m unsure. I look forward to getting another peak at the Children’s Garden.
Thanks, Kris! I think you and Elaine are right about the Alstroemeria. On closer examination of my original photos, I see that the grassy foliage is something separate from the flowers.
I love this garden so much, definitely one of my favorites nationwide-enough to make me happy to get on an airplane for 5 hours or so to visit again. Not to mention the lobster. They clearly have some very talented people putting those plant combinations together. I agree with Elaine on all the ID’s except for the purple plant which looks like Alternanthera , maybe ‘Purple Prince’. Alternantheras are widely available in the east and rarely seen here in Norcal.
Thanks for weighing in on the IDs, KS! I think you and Kris are right about the Alternanthera. It really is a gorgeous combo they’ve put together. And your comment that the garden is worth a 5-hour plane ride is a high compliment indeed, considering the state of air travel these days.
Thank you so much for sharing these amazing gardens Pam, which you have captured the essence of so beautifully. I so hope to be able to see them in person some day, but for now, your virtual tour is just what I needed!
I hope you are able to visit one day, Lee. It’s a lovely and interesting garden.
Your descriptions and photos are as if we were walking by your side. Thank you for what you do.
You’re very welcome, Jane. Thanks for “walking along!”
I so enjoy all your posts. I have a Kousa Dogwood (SF Bay Area) and it does not produce berries like those in your pictures, if it produces any at all! It does flower nicely and gives great fall color but I suppose the summer dry climate we have hinders the berry formation. This inspires me to do an east coast trip like this next fall!
Perhaps so, Kristin. I hope you see it fruit one day. But it’s a lovely tree even without that.